Don't Tempt Me (Fallen Women 2)

He set down his cutlery. His slitted green gaze moved to the footmen posted on either side of the sideboard. “Out,” he said.

They went out.

“Come here,” said the duke to his wife.

Monday, 4 May, in the duke’s study

The interlude after breakfast led to another and another. They were newlyweds, after all. And then, as important newlyweds in London, they had to be seen here and had to be seen there. The Duke of York gave a great party on Saturday night. The Queen was there, and several princesses and royal dukes and certain members of the nobility, the Marchmonts included, naturally. As they were taking tea, the Queen suddenly fell ill. She was taken back to Buckingham House in Lord Castlereagh’s carriage, because her own wasn’t ready.

Zoe and Marchmont left soon after Her Majesty did. They went home and did what newlyweds usually do.

It wasn’t until Monday that Zoe found the time to begin examining the household. She commenced the review shortly after Marchmont had dressed and taken himself off to Tattersall’s.

Osgood, she found, was happy to indulge her curiosity. He proudly showed her his domain: the neat piles of correspondence, the diary with its beautifully penned entries, the tidy ledgers listing Marchmont’s personal expenditures.

After Osgood came Harrison.

Harrison was a horse of a different color.

A power struggle instantly ensued.

“Your Grace, I should be happy to explain the rules of the household,” the house steward said. “We follow the rules written down by His Grace’s grandfather, the eighth Duke of Marchmont. Some minor adjustments have been made to accommodate modern requirements.”

“It’s a great house, and I understand there must be ceremony and strict rules,” Zoe said. “The rules here will not be the same as those in other houses. I do not expect to make any but minor changes, and perhaps very few. Still, before I think about what I will and will not do, I must review all of the current records.”

“Mr. Dove and Mrs. Dunstan will be happy to answer any questions Your Grace has regarding the household matters.”

Zoe knew better than to let him fob her off on the butler and housekeeper. This was about control, and she must have it.

“I shall speak to them, naturally, in due course,” she said cheerfully. “But I shall begin by reviewing the books. I want to see all of them for the last six months. The ledgers. The accounts for provisions. The inventories.”

“Your Grace, I shall deem it an honor to explain the provisioning of the household,” said Harrison. “You should not find anything lacking. If you do, however, the matter will be attended to with a word, a mere word. Every member of this staff is not content merely to meet the needs of the family, Your Grace. We view it as our duty to anticipate. If there is aught amiss with Your Grace’s apartments, Mrs. Dunstan will wish to know of it, that she might correct the oversight immediately.”

“I expect no less,” Zoe said.

“Thank you, Your Grace. We should wish you to have only the highest expectations of the staff of Marchmont House.”

It was obviously time for the voice of command.

“I expect my orders to be heeded,” Zoe said in the implacable tones that might have startled some people but with which Jarvis was familiar.

The tone clearly startled Harrison, because he became more wooden.

“I expect you to anticipate my desire to review everything to do with the running of the household whose mistress I am,” she said, watching the faint color rise in his face. “I do not expect to have to explain myself again. I expect to find in the library by three o’clock this afternoon the household records—all of them—for the last six months, and the most recent inventories.” She chose the location on purpose, remembering Harrison’s veiled insult on her first visit—the implication that she was too ignorant to appreciate books. “I’ll begin reviewing them immediately.”

“Yes, Your Grace,” Harrison said, his lips barely moving. “Very good, Your Grace.”

He went out of the room in his usual stiff way, but this was the stiffness of suppressed fury. It practically came off him in waves. The other servants would have no more trouble than Zoe did in sensing it. Unlike them, though, she wouldn’t shrink away from his rage.

She’d had plenty of experience with bullies. She knew that some created an atmosphere of barely suppressed violence. It could be quite frightening to those at the bully’s mercy. But she wasn’t at anybody’s mercy, and she wouldn’t be intimidated or manipulated.

Given the condition of the house, she expected Harrison’s records to be irreproachable. But that wasn’t the point.

The point was, Who was in charge?

Marchmont clearly wasn’t.

She would have to be. As a woman and, worse, the notorious Harem Girl, she could never hope to have the respect of the servants and control of the household if she accommodated the house steward instead of seeing that he accommodated her.

It was not the Duchess of Marchmont’s business to make servants happy. It was their job to make her happy. If it turned out they were underpaid for the job, she’d correct that. But it would be fatal to her authority to expect of them any less than the absolute obedience Marchmont received.

A few hours later

Servant problems.

Marchmont had never had a servant problem. He was not supposed to have servant problems. Servant problems were Harrison’s problem.

Now Marchmont had a wife. She had not been in the house for four days, and he had a catastrophic servant problem.

He found Zoe in her dressing room, frowning at a carriage dress Jarvis held up for her inspection.

“Out,” he said, making the go-away gesture at the maid.

Jarvis darted out of the room, taking the carriage dress with her.

Zoe stared at him.

“Harrison is threatening to resign,” he said.

She frowned. “That’s strange.”

“Do you think so?” he said.

“It’s very strange,” she said. “He simply came to you and

said he wished to resign?”

“He tells me you asked to see all of the household records and—and I hardly know what else.”

“Inventories,” she said. “It’s my responsibility to review these records, to fully understand the management of this household.”

“You’ve impugned his integrity.”

“I think not,” she said. “I think this is about getting his way. You are the Duke of Marchmont. He’s your house steward. Where will he obtain a more prestigious position? If he leaves because of a small thing like this, then something is very wrong in this house.”

“Something is clearly wrong,” Marchmont said tightly. “We had peace here, and all running smoothly, and look what you’ve done.”

“I’ve done what is my responsibility,” she said.

“You don’t need to be responsible,” he said. “Harrison has been with this family for twenty years. He started as a footboy. If ever there were a trusted retainer, that is one—and you’ve implied he isn’t trustworthy.”

“Have I, really?” Zoe said. “Because I wished to do what every woman of my family does?”

“Every woman of your family is not the Duchess of Marchmont,” he said.

“Quite true. My responsibilities are greater than theirs.”

“Your responsibility is to bear my children,” he said. “And to spend my money. And to entertain yourself in the Beau Monde you were so determined to be part of.”

“That’s all?” she said. Her voice had grown dangerously quiet, and there was a light in her blue eyes that even he could read, whether he wished to or not. But he was too angry to heed the warning.

“It’s bourgeois,” he said, “to fuss about records and inventories, like a common shopkeeper.”

“Common?” she said. “Common?”

She snatched up a hairbrush and threw it at him.

He dodged instinctively, and the missile flew by him and struck the door frame.

He was not allowed to throw anything back.